News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Young 'pranksters' skewed landmark sexuality study. Parent comment

Re:Young 'pranksters' skewed landmark sexuality study by Crito on Friday January 24, 2014 @10:58PM (#7119787)
My understanding is that the "placebo effect" doesn't refer to biased numbers or reporting, but exists when everything is measured correctly. It is objectively there, not a screwy result.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Young 'pranksters' skewed landmark sexuality study by yaddayadda on Friday January 24, 2014 @11:09PM (#7119810)
You're correct. What saalweachter was describing are ways to minimize threats to reliability and validity.

- http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/relandval.php

- http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/Courses/Psy624/Validity.ht...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_validity

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_validity

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Young 'pranksters' skewed landmark sexuality study by saalweachter on Friday January 24, 2014 @11:34PM (#7119866)
"Biased" is probably a loaded word. I think I may have implied intent without meaning to.

But basically, the placebo effect only exists for subjective measurements. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanism_of_the_effect) If something exists only in subjective measurements and not objective measurements... I'll let you draw your own inference.

[ Parent | on HN ]